Edibles

A Rational Account of Cannabis Overdose, Source: http://metronewsca.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/06264863.jpgJacob Sullum, writer for Reason.com, recently took a trip to Colorado and chronicled his experience with edibles. Sullum admittedly had some less than great experiences with edibles, but he was careful to point out that it is not quite as terrible as Maureen Dowd made it seem (did she go as Chicken Little for Halloween?).

For a little recap, here is an excerpt from Dowd’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day:

“I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy,” Dowd wrote in June. “I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.”

Sullum, for his part, took a more rational approach to his experience:

“My own marijuana overdose was not nearly so dramatic. But I clearly had eaten one sour gummy candy too many. When I got up from bed to use the bathroom shortly after midnight, I was so dizzy that I had to sit down. I sat/fell hard enough to leave an impressive-looking bruise on my lower back. I know because during my massage with cannabis-infused lotion a few days later the masseuse remarked on it, which prompted me to tell her the whole embarrassing story, the moral of which is that edibles are indeed tricky, but consumers are not quite as helpless as Dowd portrays them.”

Though you’re not going to die or have any real lasting problems from eating too much cannabis, the experience can be unsettling to a novice. “Start low and go slow” is the advice given by dispensary owners. Edibles are deceptive in the way they hit you. It takes much longer for the cannabis to hit you when it needs to be digested first, compared to smoked cannabis which you will feel almost instantly.

From what I can gather, dispensary owners and edible retailers are doing their part with labeling and flat out telling customers to be cautious and  to take it slow. In fact, Dowd herself was instructed in the proper dosage but opted to go overboard because she didn’t feel anything right away (and she was drinking wine!).

Yet some in the media have taken up these negative accounts as proof that cannabis is dangerous and should remain illicit. Alcohol isn’t getting this type of lambasting, and I’m not saying it should. Substances are what they are, it falls to the person imbibing them to be smart about it. If you drank one shot of tequila and didn’t feel drunk right away would you pound 5 more? Probably not.

I want to thank Sullum for detailing his experience and doing so with enough class to own his part of the negative experience. He had too much. He had more than he was advised to take and had a bad time.

Legal cannabis or not, the onus of taking care of yourself still falls to you. Sorry.